Sally Field Reacts to Ageism and People Who ‘Don’t Think Older Women Are Interesting’

After acting for over 60 years, Sally Field knows she has plenty more stories to tell, and she’s calling out those who think she can’t.

The two-time Oscar winner currently stars in the newly released Netflix film “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” based on Shelby Van Pelt’s 2022 bestselling debut novel of the same title. In the sentimental flick, the prolific actor, 79, portrays a grieving widow who works as a custodian at an aquarium. There, she befriends a young man, played by Lewis Pullman, who is searching for his father and the two help each other heal while also bonding with a giant Pacific octopus.

Willie Geist interviewed Field in the May 10 edition of TODAY’s Sunday Sitdown to discuss the movie and also reflect on her decadeslong career in Hollywood.

“You don’t seem to me, correct me if I’m wrong, as somebody who thinks a lot about legacy,” Willie pointed out.

Field agreed and said that she is more focused on looking forward despite naysayers who think that older women can’t land leading parts because they aren’t as compelling.

“I don’t even think about it. I really think about what’s next. And will there be a next, you know?” she replied.

Field continued, “As you get older… boy, (roles are) hard to find. People don’t think older women are interesting, I guess. But I got news for you, it’s all those older women who raised you.”

The veteran actor has tackled a wide range of roles throughout her career, from “Gidget,” to “The Flying Nun,” “Sybil,” “Norma Rae,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Forrest Gump,” “Lincoln,” “Brothers & Sisters” and many more.

Speaking about her latest role, Field described her character in “Remarkably Bright Creatures” as “an old woman who has grief in her life” after the death of her husband. “But there’s a deeper grief that she hides and holds, and it has kept her away from the world.”

She told Willie that she and Pullman, whose character also works at the aquarium, ad-libbed some of the scenes where their characters get to know each other.

“We began to improvise, and we just were these people. Just, bam, right out of the chute,” she recalled.

While another, less-experienced actor might feel intimidated to take on a book with a large fanbase, Field said she didn’t feel any pressure and was raring to go when production began.

“So by the time we got to really shoot it… anything that needed to be left, had to be left,” she shared. “Then the allegiance, I feel, has to be in making the film work.”

Field’s passion for acting and taking on different parts hasn’t waned, and she still has goals she wants to achieve. She told Carson Daly her dreams for this stage in her career during an appearance on TODAY May 5.

She shared that she has always known she was born to be an actor. One could say it was in her blood. Field’s mother, Margaret Field, was also an actor and her stepfather, Jock Mahoney, was a stuntman.

“This is what I do. I’m an actor. And I’m proud to be an actor,” she said. “As I get older, and I’m months away from being 80, (finding) the roles about 80-year-old women is my dream. That’s it.”

Before “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” Field’s last film was the 2023 comedy “80 for Brady,” where she, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Lily Tomlin portrayed a group of life-long friends who wanted to go to the Super Bowl and meet Tom Brady.

And born to act she was, telling Willie in their Sunday Sitdown that after the first time she took the stage as a kid, “I left my body. I was doing something but I didn’t tell myself to do it.”

“I heard my voice for the first time,” she said of acting, “and I could be mean, I could be all sorts of things I wasn’t allowed to be.”

When asked if acting was just a natural fit since she discovered it, Field replied, “I guess so… I would’ve been a nurse or … I don’t know what I would’ve been.”

“Thank goodness for acting I guess, right?” Willie quipped.

“I’ll say,” Field said.